It's good for Snowden because it means he really was a whistle blower. Things can still be good for him even though he's not back at home.
Hillary Clinton
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/oct/...
> "He broke the laws of the United States," Clinton said. "He could have been a whistleblower. He could have gotten all of the protections of being a whistleblower. He could have raised all the issues that he has raised. And I think there would have been a positive response to that."
Bill Nelson
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/man-traitor-article-1.136...
> "Edward Snowden is not a whistleblower. What Edward Snowden did amounts to an act of treason."
Jeremy Bash, a former chief counsel to the House Intelligence Committee:
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/52158315/t/former-cia-chief-staff-...
> “The efforts to make him into a hero, I think, are going to fall flat,” said Bash. “He’s not a whistle blower. You don’t break the law, steal documents and then make a run for the border.”
Gabriel Schoenfeld, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/snowdens-hypocrisy-o...
> "Whatever the answer, Snowden’s silence about the quasi-dictatorship where he has taken sanctuary is telling. It is yet more evidence, if evidence were needed, that he is not a whistleblower at all"
Fine! I concede the point! There are serious Snowden opponents who believe he's a Soviet spy --- really, there are. I'm glad if this court result, long overdue, establishes that he did some good.
Who are the serious opponents if they aren't the politicians that stand in the way of his return?
He leaked information about programs where there is no conceivable argument that the programs are illegal or constitutional. He leaked it because he was against the them politically.
If you rob a bank and some of the money you took was stolen from the people, that doesn't make you Robin Hood.
This isn't a win for him, he might be pleased with the outcome that a judge has sided with a plea for a target specific injunction but it doesn't really bring him any closer to being able to live a normal life.
Even if it comes to the point in which he wont fear being targeted for either an extradition, rendition or an ol' plain hit by one of the alphabet soup agencies of the US considering that in many cases he admitted that he has a cache of documents hidden somewhere as an insurance allot of which were never released the the press or to the public unredacted he isn't just a target for US intelligence and Law Enforcement organizations he is a target of virtually every intelligence organization out there who would love to get their hands on unredacted NSA documents as well as any potentially actionable intelligence Snowden might have in his head.
And heck even if he some how manages to come back to the US under a full pardon or a no prosecution agreement of some sort he won't really be able to live a normal life for the next few decades until every bit of the information he may or may not have is no longer relevant.
Maybe it's a "win" philosophically, judicially (however small), psychologically. In some sense, a validation of his efforts.
The article itself doesn't even mention whether or not this would affect his ability to re-enter the US without consequence, do I don't see why you're hanging so hard on that point.